Towards Mysterious Realities (in Seoul)

Date | April. 26, 2018 – June. 24, 2018
Opening | April 26, 3pm
Venue | Total Museum of Contemporary Art, Space 55 (Seoul)

Co-organizer | Total Museum of Contemporary Art, TheCube Project Space
Curator | Amy CHENG, Nathalie Boseul SHIN
Artist | AU Sow-Yee, Francisco CAMACHO, CHANG Chien-Chi, CHIN Cheng-Te, James T. HONG, HOU Chun-Ming, HSU Chia-Wei, IM Heung-Soon, Donghwan JO + Haejun JO, LI Liao, Okin Collective, Prajakta POTNIS

Co-organized by TheCube Project Space and Total Museum of Contemporary Art and curated by Amy Cheng and Nathalie Boseul Shin, the exhibition Towards Mysterious Realities will take place at Total Museum of Contemporary Art and Space 55 in Seoul, Korea from April 26, 2018 to June 24, 2018.

Towards Mysterious Realities is an exhibition aiming to encourage profound reflection on the relations among Asian countries and that between Asia and the world by reexamining the Cold-War experiences and its legacies. Through twelve invited artists/collectives, the exhibition revolves around the unseen interconnectivities between memories of recent past driven by various socio-political events in post-war Asia.

With an emphasis on multiple intersected dimensions to this context and through artists’ aesthetic engagements and concerns over specific pieces of history, the exhibition also attempts to construct/discover the relationships between historical contexts and our day-to-day survival from different perspectives. Both personal experiences and collective consciousness are linked and charted by the vicissitudinary political and social forces.

Towards Mysterious Realities is concerned with the unsettling Cold War experiences throughout the second half of the 20th century, seeking to examine how the previous head-on confrontations over ideologies and values, which have been ignored or consigned to oblivion, lurk in our quotidian existence in a transcendent manner. Furthermore, this exhibition expects such a historical experience stretching back generations to serve as one of major pivotal points for profound reflections wherefrom we can map out alternative routes to grasp and re-narrate realities.

About Total Museum of Contemporary Art (TMCA)

TMCA, Korea’s first privately-owned, contemporary art institution was founded by architect Shin-Kyu Moon and current director Joon-Eui Noh in 1984. In 1976, prior to founding the museum, the couple established the Total Gallery, devoted exclusively to craft and design, in Daehak-Ro, Seoul. In 1984, they opened the nation’s first sculpture park, the Total Museum in Jang Heung, Gyeonggi Province. The park served as a prominent destination for many art seekers and the public until its closing in 2002. In 1992, the museum opened the doors to its home in Pyungchang Dong, Seoul with a new name, Total Museum of Contemporary Art (TMCA). Since then, it has become a pioneer in establishing the world-renowned art district, New Pyungchang-dong, with numerous art museums and galleries.